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We get to the nub of the matter. There is not a single disruptive startup that did not break dozens of laws, either in spirit or in fact. It is impossible for t
by temphn 15y ago
We get to the nub of the matter. There is not a single disruptive startup that did not break dozens of laws, either in spirit or in fact. It is impossible for them not to as laws are written by incumbents and are not written in the public interest.
Napster and Youtube broke copyright laws. So did Google. Apple's Jobs was a phone phreak. Gates was disciplined by the Ad Board for selling software on campus. And Facebook's creator famously "breach[ed] security, violating copyrights and violating individual privacy by creating the website, www.facemash.com".
Good entrepreneurs don't give a damn about "the rules", or about those whose primary purpose in life is obeying rules or making up new ones. Indeed, good entrepreneurs have a healthy disrespect for the law. But unlike the common criminal, they break the law to create rather than to destroy.
Your assumption is that the legal system is on the side of the average Joe and is protecting their interests against "for profit companies". It is much more accurate to say that a law is like a stationary cannon, which is captured by those with the deepest pockets and aimed at those who would pose market threats to those deep pockets.
Real estate developers who already own property support restrictive zoning laws to keep rents high. Life insurers are the biggest lobbyists for the death tax. Large restaurant chains support food safety inspection regimes that result in reams of paperwork, as they can amortize this cost across more employees.
Stated good intentions mean nothing. Every system of laws will face gaming attempts from day one, not just from "evil for profit startups" but also from corrupt politicians, bureaucrats, and lobbyists.
This needs to be factored into your analysis, as you too easily accept the narrative of "data privacy law" rather than "a law passed to advance the career of so-and-so politician and NGO, funded by lobbyist X, covered sympathetically by journalist Y, and sold to us as a data privacy law".
- majika 15y ago>It is much more accurate to say that a law is like a stationary cannon, which is captured by those with the deepest pockets and aimed at those who would pose market threats to those deep pockets. Every law? Antitrust laws? Data privacy laws? Laws that require hotels to be licensed? If you take issue with a law, then that law is the problem; not the enforcing of it. Startups should not be exempt from the law simply because they're a startup. There are better ways to spur wealth creation via small businesses than to allow small businesses to flaunt the law when they see fit.
- dantheman 15y agoWhat do you like about antitrust laws? Without government intervention there are no monopolies. How did breaking up standard oil help anyone? They ended whaling, drove the price of kerosene from 100$ to 2$ -- how was this bad for the consumer? How did all the microsoft antitrust stuff help us? How is hassling google helping us? I think we're in agreement with respect to the law, the point of the parent post was that instead of hair-brained schemes to increase the number of startups we should reduce useless laws and regulations so that they can thrive.
- AlisdairO 15y ago> Without government intervention there are no monopolies Can you really justify that statement?
- Hyena 15y agoUsually the law that gets broken is obscure and not intended for business in the first place. Social has a risk of running up against privacy laws whose intent is actually to prevent random 7-Eleven or Super 8 employee from recording you and then selling the video or distributing it among friends. These aren't really intended as "business regulations" so much as "ant-douche laws".
- Hyena 15y agoThis is pretty weak sauce. Most successful entrepreneurs either never break a law or never intend to. The activity of Gates and Zuckerberg barely rate as "mischief", the tech equivalent of letting 20 year-olds drink beer at a college party. If you're regularly breaking laws in business, it's probably not a tech company. It's probably a restaurant, health services or construction company, where there are immense networks of regulation at every level.